Phil called me up last weekend and exclaimed that he had just made the world’s ugliest birthday cake and was glad to know that his mother’s love would over look it.  I was curious what the cake looked like, so I made him take a short video of it.   In my mind, I had expected it to look a lot worse.    I think Phil is right, though, he should definitely stick to computers because cakes sure aren’t his thing – even if they taste really good.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcJatHW2cAM[/youtube]

Snow crystals are so pretty. I wish I had been able to get a better picture of them.

Snow is such a rare thing in South Carolina, that when those wonderful white flakes do fall out of the sky, the entire state shuts down.  No lie.  For instance, the amount of snow seen in the video below is about all we had – a dusting.  Even before the snow began to fall, many schools decided to close for the day and many others had delayed openings.  I’m hoping they closed in fear of the snow being worse than it was because it really wasn’t anything to worry about in Columbia.  The roads were wet, but they weren’t any worse than a rainy day.  Of course, no one in Columbia can drive when it rains, so I can’t imagine they could drive any better with pretty white flakes distracting them.  I’m waiting for the blizzard of 1973 to rear its ugly head again, so that I can experience 16+ inches of snow in person.  I wonder how many days of work and school were missed then.  That may have been the year my brother prayed for snow.  Boy, were his prayers answered!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLYk_ukAHrU[/youtube]

We still have February to get through, so maybe we’ll get some more snow.  I want to peg Phil with at least one snow ball.  🙂  Just one.

For those of you who don’t know me too well, I absolutely love Cookie Monster.  And it is not because we share a birthday or anything.  I didn’t even know we did until I wrote a paper on him in high school.  Yes, I wrote a paper on Cookie Monster.  The teacher said I could write about anyone famous.  She didn’t say the famous person had to be of the flesh!

Several years ago, my mom got me a Cookie Monster cookie cake for my birthday.  It was so pretty, I had a hard time eating it.  Well, that and the icing was super sweet. I think it was the most awesome cake I have ever had.  I’ve got a picture of it on my other computer.  I’ll try to post a picture of it later.

If anyone wants to make my year though, just send me a dozen of these cupcakes on November 2nd.  It would be the sweetest birthday present ever!  I’ll be waiting patiently for your delivery.  🙂

The Noms say it all.

I may have been tired a lot of the time I was in China and used that as an excuse not to blog, but at least I had stories to tell had I made my lazy butt type. So far, in 2009, nothing interesting has happened to me to be deemed blog worthy.

Besides putting our table project on hold until we have more time and good weather, the only thing Phil and i have been doing is house hunting. We’ve been looking rather seriously for nearly 2 months now. We haven’t had a lot of luck. It’s supposed to be a buyer’s market right now, so you would think it would be a little easier to find what we are looking for. So far, every thing we have found and been really interested in has either had a major flaw or been sold by the time we found it. Tomorrow we are taking a second look at a downtown property that seems to have some potential. Hopefully, we won’t find anything really wrong with it. If the viewing goes well, then we have to jump the hurdle called a “short sale”. It could be a risky buy, so Phil is going to have to do some serious thinking before he signs any paper work. I’ll let you know how it goes.

And since I have absolutely nothing else to talk about, I am going to post a picture of a purple flower that I took back in 2005. I was in to purple way before it became the cool color.

I don't know where I was when I took this picture. I just know I took the picture because it was purple.

And just to let you know, for those of you who are curious, the table is not finished.  In fact, it is still sitting in pieces on the floor. I have a strange feeling that I will never eat at that table again.

In case you were wondering, this is how I felt this morning at 6:20.

I love Lolcats.  They get me through the day.

Phil and I decided that it would be a good idea to finish his old dinning room table over our twleve day vacation.  On the first day of our vacation, we got the top of the table done and just the easy to reach areas on the legs.  A week later, we finally finished the rest of legs.  We were going to start staining yesterday, but it was too freaking windy.  Today being New Year’s Day, we are too tired to do anything and we have to go eat a traditional meal at his parents at 3:00.  Tomorrow we have to go look at some more houses with our real estate agent.  That leaves us with Sunday, our last vacation day, to get anything done.  If Sunday is a good day weather wise, I expect we will only be able to tackle a few legs.  We’ll probably be working on this table for the next several weeks.  I’ll be happy that is just gets done – sometime this year.

Here is a partial before and after picture.  We plan to stain the top of the table light and the legs of the table dark.  When we buy some new chairs, we will do the same to them.

Here is what she looked like before.

Here is what she looked like after day one.

Happy New Year’s guys.  Hope you all have a great 2009.  Remember 2012 is only 3 years away.  🙂

Phil’s famous last words were, “Hell, lets do it.”

And this is what happened.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIv1mzlH09A[/youtube]

Had three men not come to our rescue, we would have had to call a tow truck.  I told them that we would love their help, but that they were not allowed to ask how we got into our mess.  They just smiled.  Thankfully, the car was on a slight incline.  When they lifted the back end up, the front two wheels caught, and the car was free.

Everyday is an adventure with Phil.

I was looking through some of my old videos and thought I would post them here for your viewing pleasure.

The first one is off a piggy scratching his bum.  I found him at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens located in Charleston, South Carolina. I’ve always wanted a pig, and came real close to buying one in China, but Phil wouldn’t let me.  Meanie!!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeE84PufTQk[/youtube]

I love feeding ducks.  I used to go to a pond near my house all of the time, but they have now made it illegal or something like that to feed the ducks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8q40t2456s[/youtube]

I used to volunteer at Carolina Wildlife Care, a non-profit, wildlife rehabilitation clinic located here in Columbia.  It was a great experience and I was able to see a lot of wild animals up close.  One of the cutest animals I saw there was a Blue Grey Gnatcatcher.  I wanted to put him in my pocket and take him home.  Sorry about the video quality. My old Kodak didn’t like close up shots.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd0fuPwt_0k[/youtube]

On Sunday, Phil and I went to the mall and picked four cards off of a Christmas tree that represented four different kids in need.  We picked two boys and two girls.  Phil and I had decided several months ago that we were going to buy presents for kids who otherwise might not get any instead of buying for each other or our families.

The one thing that surprised me is that a large percentage of kids were asking for big ticket items like PS3’s and Wii’s.  Almost every kid wanted a bike.  It was hard to find kids who were asking for something that they actually needed or something that was reasonable for me to buy them on my budget.  I wondered if some of the parents had used their kids to get things that they wanted.

This is the first time I have ever done something like this.  For me, it was a good experience.  I hope the kids are happy come Christmas morning.  I’d love to see their faces.

Here are the gifts we bought the kids.

I don’t know if other people do it, but I sometimes dream in Chinese.

It started sometime after I arrived in China.  I thought it was pretty cool, even though I didn’t understand all that was being said.  When people would talk to me, I would respond to them like I would in real life – a few key phrases or words to try and explain what I needed or wanted them to know. My vocabulary has always been rather limited.

I always wondered why my mind didn’t pretend that I knew Chinese.  I guess it didn’t know how to fake the language.

Even after coming back to America, I still sometimes dream in Chinese.  It amazes me that in my sleep I can recall vocabulary words that I haven’t used in ages.  My most recent dream was rather entertaining, and I thought you would enjoy hearing about it – although I doubt you’ll find it as funny as I did.  I think it is hard to appreciate other people’s dreams because you lose so much in the explanation.  It’s like trying to turn a book into movie or vice versa.

In my dream, me, Phil, and Holy(our Chinese friend) were running away from some Chinese bad guys. We had been running for a long time, but the bad guys were still hot on our trail.  At some point we decide to hop on a train.  The train was headed to Hong Kong.  Well, once we boarded the train and left the station – my dream decided to go completely nuts.  The train, in its attempt to flee the bad guys, jumped the tracks and started traveling at very high speeds over mountains, valleys and streams.  It reminded me of a cartoon.  Somehow we managed to put some ground in between us and the bad guys and were able to rest for a while in our seats that I don’t remember paying for.

As the train started to pull into the Hong Kong station, we started gathering all of our stuff.  In real life, I probably would have been running from the bad guys with only the clothes on my back, but obviously, the same does not hold true for my dream life.  I had apparently crammed every single one of my possessions in numerous suitcases, pockets, and bags and had waited until the last moment to gather them back up.  This is not what I found funny though.  If anything, this part of my dream cause me panic and loads of stress.  What made me smile in my dream would have sent me into side splitting laughter in real life.

As the train pulled closer to a stop, I noticed that there were thousands and thousands of Chinese people waiting to board the train.  There were so many of them, that they had built stadium like seats in the station.  All of them were standing.  And of them were chanting.  Can you guess what they were chanting?  If you have ever been to China for any extended amount of time, you should probably be able to guess.

For some strange reason, every single last one of them was chanting “Jia you! Jia you! Jia you!”

For those of you who don’t know have any idea what “Jia you” means – there happens to be a YouTube video that will teach you all you need to know.  If my dream doesn’t make you giggle, the video should.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7uJ_ExULDw[/youtube]

I have no idea what happened once the train stopped because I woke up.  I can only imagine what would have happened had I stayed asleep and the dream continued.  All I know, is that it was the strangest dream I have had in Chinese yet.